Shortcuts for Foreign Characters

Although most American publishers don't produce work in other languages, they may still use accents in their work. And, of course, many publishers do publish in other languages, such as Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese, because they do business with customers in multiple countries . Even all-English publishers may choose to use accents in foreign words like caf ƒ to help pronunciation and show a bit of international flair.

See Table 41-2 for foreign-language characters. Note that Windows shortcuts involving four numerals (such as Alt+0157) should be entered from the numeric keypad while holding the Alt key.

Tip ‚

If your font doesn't have the accented characters you need, you may be able to create them by kerning accent marks over the letters . See Chapter 17 for detailed information on kerning.

Table 41-2: Shortcuts for Accents and Foreign Characters
Character	Mac Shortcut	Windows Shortcut
acute (‚) ^[*]	Option+E letter	' letter
cedilla (‚) ^[*]	see ƒ and ƒ§	' letter
circumflex (‹ ) ^[*]	Option+I letter	^ letter
grave (`) ^[*]	Option+` letter	` letter
tilde ( ^~ ) ^[*]	Option+N letter	~ letter
trema (‚) ^[*]	Option+U letter	" letter
umlaut (‚) ^[*]	Option+U letter	" letter
ƒ½	Option+E A	' A or Alt+0193
ƒ	Option+E a	' a or Alt+0225
ƒ‚	Option+` A	` A or Alt+0192
ƒ	Option+` a	` a or Alt+0224
ƒ	Option+U A	" A or Alt+0196
ƒ	Option+U a	" a or Alt+0228
ƒ’	Option+N A	~ A or Alt+0195
ƒ& pound ;	Option+N a	~ a or Alt+0227
ƒ	Option+I A	^ A or Alt+0194
ƒ	Option+I a	^ a or Alt+0226
ƒ	Option+Shift+A	Alt+0197
ƒ	Option+A	Alt+0229
ƒ	Option+Shift+'	Alt+0198
ƒ	Option+'	Alt+0230 or Ctrl+Alt+Z
ƒ	Option+Shift+C	' C or Alt+0199
ƒ§	Option+C	' c or Alt+0231 or Ctrl+Alt+,
ƒ½	not supported	Alt+0208
˜	not supported	Alt+0240
ƒ°	Option+E E	' E or Alt+0201
ƒ	Option+E e	' e or Alt+0233
ƒ	Option+` E	` E or Alt+0200
ƒ	Option+` e	` e or Alt+0232
ƒ¹	Option+U E	" E or Alt+0203
ƒ«	Option+U e	" e or Alt+0235
ƒ	Option+I E	^ E or Alt+0202
ƒ	Option+I e	^ e or Alt+0234
ƒ½	Option+E I	' I or Alt+-205
ƒ	Option+E i	' i or Alt+0237
ƒ’	Option+ ` I	` I or Alt+0204
ƒ	Option+` i	` i or Alt+0236
ƒ½	Option+U I	" I or Alt+0207
ƒ	Option+U i	" I or Alt+0239
ƒ½	Option+I I	^ I or Alt+0206
ƒ	Option+I i	^ I or Alt+0238
ƒ˜	Option+N N	~ N or Alt+0209
ƒ±	Option+N n	~ n or Alt+0241
ƒ	Option+E O	' O or Alt+0211
ƒ³	Option+E o	' o or Alt+0243 or Ctrl+Alt+O
ƒ	Option+` O	` O or Alt+0210
ƒ²	Option+` o	` o or Alt+0242
ƒ“	Option+U O	" O or Alt+0214
ƒ	Option+U o	" o or Alt+0246
ƒ	Option+N O	~ O or Alt+0213
ƒµ	Option+N o	~ o or Alt+0245
ƒ	Option+I O	^ O or Alt+0212
ƒ	Option+I o	^ o or Alt+0244
ƒ	Option+Shift+O	Alt+0216
ƒ	Option+O	Alt+0248 or Ctrl+Alt+L
	Option+Shift+Q	Alt+0140
	Option+Q	Alt+0156
ƒ¾	not supported	Alt+0222
ƒ¾	not supported	Alt+0254
ƒ	not supported	Ctrl+Alt+S or Alt+0223
	not supported	Alt+0138
	not supported	Alt+0154
ƒ	Option+E U	' U or Alt+0218
ƒ	Option+E u	' u or Alt+0250 or Ctrl+Alt+U
ƒ	Option+` U	` U or Alt+0217
ƒ¹	Option+` u	` u or Alt+0249
ƒ“	Option+U U	" U or Alt+0220
ƒ¼	Option+U u	" u or Alt+0252
ƒ	Option+I U	^ U or Alt+0219
ƒ»	Option+I u	^ u or Alt+0251
ƒ½	not supported	' Y or Alt+0221
ƒ½	not supported	' y or Alt+0253
	Option+U Y	" Y or Alt+0159
ƒ	Option+U y	" y or Alt+0255
½	not supported	Alt+0142
¾	not supported	Alt+0158
Spanish open exclamation (‚)	Option+1	Ctrl+Alt+1 or Alt+-0161
Spanish open question (‚)	Option+Shift+/	Ctrl+Alt+/ or Alt+0191
French open double quote (‚«)	Option+\	Ctrl+Alt+[ or Alt+0171
French close double quote (‚»)	Option+Shift+\	Ctrl+Alt+] or Alt+0187
^[*] On the Mac, enter the shortcut for the accent and then type the letter to be accented. For example, to get ƒ, type Option+E and then the letter e. In Windows, if the keyboard layout is set to United States-International ‚ via the Keyboard icon in the Windows Control Panel ‚ you can enter the accent signifier and then type the letter (for example, type ` and then the letter e to get ƒ ). To avoid an accent (for example, if you want the begin a quote ‚ such as "A man" rather than have ƒ man" ‚ type a space after the accent character ‚ for example, " then space, then A, rather than " then A.

European languages and accented characters

Using accents in foreign words is great, but many Americans use them incorrectly, which is embarrassing. Although I can't tell you how to properly spell and accent every foreign word (a good dictionary for that language can!), I can tell you which accented characters are used in European languages. If you're using a word from one of the languages here and that word uses an accented character not shown for the language, you either have the wrong accent or that word is actually from a different language. I've also indicated which countries use the euro currency symbol () by including that symbol in their lists, and special currency symbols for other nations.

Many of the characters shown here are not available in standard PostScript and TrueType fonts. Most are available in OpenType fonts, though not in every case. You may need a special font for the specific language to get all the characters.

Albanian:
Basque (Euskara):
Breton:
Catalan:
Croatian:
Czech:
Danish:
Dutch:
English, American and Canadian:
English, British:
English, Old:
Estonian:
Faroese:
Finnish:
French:
Frisian:
Gaelic (Scots):
German:
Hungarian:
Icelandic:
Irish:
Italian:
Latvian:
Lithuanian:
Luxembourgean:
Maltese:
Norwegian:
Occitan (Proven ƒ§al):
Polish:
Portuguese:
Rhaeto-Roman:
Romanian:
Slovak:
Slovenian:
Spanish (Castilian, Galician): ‚
Swedish:
Turkish:
Welsh:

A great source for information on foreign characters and fonts is the Yamada Language Center, accessible on the Web at http:// babel .uoregon.edu/yamada/fonts.html .